


reel against your body's borders

by phichit-chu (howtobottlefame)



Series: YOI drabbles [1]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, just pure fluff im sorry, kids in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 03:26:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9365918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howtobottlefame/pseuds/phichit-chu
Summary: The leaves change color and fall when he meets him, like a force of nature unlike anything he has ever seen.I'm Phichit. Nice to meet you, Yuuri!and his smile is so bright, so warm it makes Yuuri forget he was on the ice.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hozier's To be alone

He's 19 when he moves to Detroit. The first time he's away from home for more than a few weeks, the first time he realizes just how much it calls him back. He wants this, wants this change, this school, the skating opportunity he just couldn't find in Hasetsu. Celestino is good to him, his classes interesting, the city lively. Still, the little studio he rents seems entirely too big, too empty when he goes home at night.

He is only 20 and the idea of retiring from skating has already crossed his mind more than a few times. Usually, it would come at night when sleep didn't. When the aching of his knees and his back felt like too much from taking too many falls, his hands scraped. Celestino never says anything, never stops encouraging him back to his feet or pays him less attention than the rest of his students. That doesn't stop the thoughts from coming or his feet from slipping on the landings.

It happens before his birthday, in the middle of the fall. The leaves change color and fall when he meets him, like a force of nature unlike anything he has ever seen.

_I'm Phichit. Nice to meet you, Yuuri!_ and his smile is so bright, so warm it makes Yuuri forget he was on the ice.

He had made his senior debut just a year before and already seemed as promising as anyone else in the rink. Phichit does every one of his routines, every one of his jumps with a passion and an eagerness that make it hard for Yuuri to look away. He falls down and gets back up. Just like that. Dusts the ice from his knees and tries again, and again until he could nail it and his smile gives no indication he had ever failed. Yuuri wonders if that's the way it should look, if the tightness in his chest is the way it should feel.

Sometimes Phichit talks too fast, too eager to get everything out, for everyone to know.

"I asked if you wanted to share a place with me. I found an apartment a few blocks from the rink, above a flower shop. The lady said she'd give us a fair price for it. I've always loved flower shops."

He's 21 when he finds out what it's like to not feel so lonely at night. He finds, too, Phichit's a force of nature even when no one's around to see. The walls are thin and he hears him sing sometimes, finds himself humming the same song on his way to school. When he wakes up, Phichit already got him coffee. Gets one for the lady at the flower shop, too. In return, she gives him stray flower blossoms every week. The pots are mismatched and he says he likes them better that way. When they start to whither, he doesn't throw them away. Yuuri opens his textbooks and finds the flowers carefully pressed between the pages.

He's 21 when he learns home is not always the place you're in, but the people you're with.

It happens quickly, before he can notice. It's that way with him. Unexpected. Surprising. Bright and blinding. Phichit made decisions when Yuuri wasn't brave enough to. A weekend trip. Sneaking out of class when the weather was just too nice to be indoors. Holding hands on the way home. 

"It's cold," he says, smiling at Yuuri. It's not even winter. Phichit's fingers thread between his own and Yurri finds he doesn't mind. When he walks home alone he thinks his hand feels empty, like he's missing something.

He was 15 when he had his first kiss, back home, feeding ducks at the lake with another of Minako's students. She had leaned closer and he had followed, let her kiss his lips and steal breadcrumbs from his hands. When she turned back to the ducks he thought how simple it had been, how unremarkable. If kissing was always like that he didn't know what was so great about it.

He's 22 when he finds out he was wrong. Phichit's hair like silk under his fingertips, the taste of strawberry toothpaste and home in his lips. Like everything with him, it happened before he could realize it was. Phichit holds one of his hands as they kiss and Yuuri thinks it's not really a surprise, that he has been finding his way to him for months already. When they pull apart, the Christmas lights from the shops cast a white glow on Phichit's skin.

He speaks before Yuuri ever gets the chance to, before his thoughts could run wild and unrestrained like they're bound to do. "Do you think the coffee shop's open at this time? I could really go for a slice of cake right now." It's like that. Simple. Phichit smiles at him and he forgets.

"Cake sounds really good."

They walk back to the coffee shop and Yuuri's hand finds its way back to Phichit's, like second nature, muscle memory.

They get chocolate cake and tea and when Phichit asks if he'd like to go home already Yuuri smiles, thinks _I already am_.


End file.
